The future of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) seems endangered as calls to reform the UN attain stridency. Created in 1964 for providing development ideas, the UNCTAD has emerged high on the hit list, since the creation of the World Trade Organization has rendered it superfluous. Industrialised nations of the world are pressing for reform in a bid to help solve the financial problems of the UN.

The 1995 UN population award presented recently was shared between Denmark's Halfdan Mahler, head of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children. Mahler has been involved with the Federation -- active in 140 countries in promoting voluntary family planning -- since 1989. The African group is concerned with fighting traditional practices harmful to women.